


Better Than Ratings

by quiesce



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-08
Updated: 2009-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-04 06:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiesce/pseuds/quiesce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's one every year. This year, it's not the one you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Than Ratings

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/llaras/profile)[**llaras**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/llaras/)! Happy Bday! And *hearts* to [](http://ignaz.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ignaz**](http://ignaz.dreamwidth.org/) for the beta.

Simon knocks on Ryan's dressing room door and lets himself in without waiting for an invite.

"You'll never guess who it is this year," he says, waving a handful of papers out in front of him.

Ryan's tired and has a million things to do before the show, but there's something in Simon's tone -- a fun mixture of "I know something you don't know" glee and "we need to be fucking, now" hunger -- that stops him from kicking Simon out.

"Who who is this year?"

"This year's Idol With A Sordid Past. There's always one who's been in some racy pictures, and we just had our first internet leak of the season."

"Lemme see." Ryan reaches a hand out.

Simon hides the printouts behind his back. "You have to guess."

Ryan rolls his eyes and runs through the finalists in his head. Allison and Jasmine are, he hopes, too young to be considered, so who does that leave? Alexis? Megan? Lil? He asks and Simon shakes his head at each name, grinning. He asks Allison and Jasmine next, half cringing, but they get no'd, too.

"Someone from the semis?" Ryan frowns. He can rattle off names and background info with ease when it's his job to know who everyone is, but the second someone's off the show, they're out of mind. He's not sure he can name half the wildcards anymore, let alone go back as far as the first group. "If it's fucking Tatiana, I don't want to see."

"Not Tatiana; not the semis. Someone still on the show."

Ryan runs through the finalists again. "But if it's not one of the girls, then..." He trails off and Simon raises his eyebrows at him. "Ah."

"Precisely."

"Really? Who? Lemme see."

This time Simon hands over the pictures without a fuss. Ryan sees sequins, glitter, hair that is nowhere near the realm of natural color. Guys kissing other guys. He looks closer. "Holy shit, is that Adam?"

Simon smiles in response but Ryan is too busy rifling through the pictures to notice. "Wow. The guys upstairs must be flipping out."

"They are. Who cares?"

"Adam?"

Simon laughs. "Does it look like he cares what anyone thinks?"

"No, I don't suppose he does." Ryan traces a finger absentmindedly across a picture of a group of barely clothed men at Burning Man and then stops abruptly when he realizes that he's lingering on Adam's crotch.

"So I was thinking," Simon murmurs. Ryan jumps in his chair, having been too preoccupied to notice Simon leaning down to whisper in his ear. He tilts his head to the side, offering Simon a better angle. Simon obliges and brushes his lips up Ryan's neck to his ear. "That, having seen these pictures, we might find tonight's show a tad," Simon catches Ryan's earlobe with his teeth and tugs gently. "Distracting."

"Fuck."

Simon grins against Ryan's cheek. "Exactly." His tongue makes a quick swipe along Ryan's jaw, then steps back as Ryan moans.

"After the show then," Simon says, back in his regular voice, regular volume.

"Simon," Ryan hisses, more plaintively than he intends.

"After the show," Simon repeats firmly.

Simon's gone before Ryan regains enough coherence to argue that sex now doesn't preclude sex after.

Ryan sets the pictures aside, photo side down, and picks up his notes for the show. He reviews singer order, song info, interview questions, anything to distract away his erection before it's time to head to wardrobe.

 

***

 

Ryan flips through the papers on his desk, summaries of the goings-on in the entertainment world from the twenty-one hours since he was last on the air. He finds the page mentioning Adam's pictures halfway through the stack, complete with a hand-drawn smiley face that one of the PAs must have left for him. He skips quickly to the next news item.

"Morning." The word is muffled but Ryan's used to decoding Ellen talking with papers in her mouth, making her way to his desk, coffee in one hand and dragging a chair over with the other. She sits down opposite him and points to a highlighted section on her copy of the briefings. "I was thinking we should start with the story on--"

She trails off, staring at Ryan's face. "Jesus, did you fuck a unicorn last night?"

"I, um... What?" Ryan's glad that his morning coffee is long finished, or he'd be wearing it right about now.

Ellen leans across the desk, brushes a thumb across his cheek, runs the other hand lightly through his hair, then holds both hands out for Ryan to see.

Glitter.

Shit.

"No comment?" Ryan tries.

Ellen laughs. "Oh no, there will definitely be comment."

"I showered twice as long as normal this morning trying to get rid of that stuff. I guess I missed some."

Ellen stares at him, eyebrows raised, clearly not accepting this as enough of an explanation.

"It wasn't my idea; it was all Ssss... It wasn't my idea."

"And this has nothing to do with certain glitter-containing photos that showed up yesterday?"

"I... don't have any idea what you're talking about," Ryan protests. It sounds weak even to him.

"Uh huh. So tell me, were you the young, not-so-innocent singer performing for the mean judge with a heart of gold, or was he the glammed up one that you played 'host' to?"

Ellen always was a classy lady. Ryan tells her as much.

When she laughs this time, she lets out a snort. "C'mere," she says reaching across the desk again. She wipes at a spot on his forehead, brushing a few more errant flecks away, then leans back, appraising. "There. You're presentable again. You're welcome."

"Thanks," Ryan mumbles.

"You're welcome," she repeats. "Ok, I was thinking we should start with the story TMZ broke last night."

 

***

 

Ryan finds Simon hiding in the back lot, smoking.

"Seen the latest?" he asks.

Simon shakes his head. "Latest what? Ratings?"

"Better."

"Nothing's better than ratings."

"Someone found more pictures of Adam online."

Simon smirks. "Alright, those might be temporarily slightly better than ratings."

"How temporarily?"

Simon tosses his cigarette on the ground, putting it out with his boot. "How long before we're needed on set?"


End file.
